A great quote from Pope Francis, with a hat tip to NCR: Faced with the tragic events of human history, we can feel crushed at times, asking ourselves, ‘Why?’ Humanity’s evil can appear in the world like an abyss, a great void: empty of love, empty of goodness, empty of life. And so we ask: how can we fill the abyss? For us it is impossible; only God can fill this emptiness that evil brings to our hearts and to... Read more
My third attempt at crafting a homily for the Sunday readings. This time I had it pretty much worked out by yesterday, but was unable to find the time to write it up. And then at mass this morning I got a completely different understanding of the readings. While not ideal were I actually required to preach each Sunday, praying over the readings while at mass opens them up for me in ways that simply thinking about them during the... Read more
This is a quick post to follow up on my homily on the Widow’s Mite two weeks ago. Yesterday, at a regularly scheduled meeting of department chairs, we had a presentation from the United Way of West Alabama—the University of Alabama is a big donor, and they were there to say thank you and to encourage our continued support. The speaker shared a story about their work that really grabbed me, and I wanted to share it. A few years... Read more
My second installment of a sermon on the Sunday readings. This one was much, much harder. Even though I started preparing last Tuesday, it did not come together until today at mass. The opening hymn was Gather Us In, one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite modern hymn. I chose it for the processional hymn for my mother’s funeral last year. Singing it today, particularly the verse about “the bread of new birth”, led me to the conclusion... Read more
“I think that when people turn on their TVs and see this footage, they’ll say, ‘Oh my God, that’s horrible,’ and then they’ll go back to eating their dinners.” – The character of Jack Daglish (played by Joaquín Phoenix) in Hotel Rwanda (directed by Terry George, 2004) No [person] is an island, entire of itself; every [person] is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, [the world] is... Read more
We have recently (on my birthday, Nov. 4, in fact) lost one of the great thinkers of our time. While others have offered helpful introductions to his work (the interested reader might look at “Robert Barron, Rene Girard, Church Father,” “Rene Girard: Are The Gospels Mythical” and “The Scapegoat: Rene Girard’s Anthropology of Religion and Violence,” in order), I want to take this opportunity to reflect on a problem that Rene Girard has helped me to better understand, an issue... Read more
To the readers of Vox Nova: I have not been posting much lately, as you may have noticed. One excuse is that I have been busy with my new job, which is proving to be much more time consuming that I had thought it would be. And I ask your prayers: being a chairman is hard work, but I am really enjoying this opportunity. But, at the same time, I have to admit that I have been having a hard... Read more
Like my colleague David, I have been following the synod of bishops with interest, with my preferred sources being mainly the refreshingly unfiltered (and often quite detailed) reports from the Vatican Information Service via email subscription, and the incomparably lucid reporting of John Allen and his team at Crux. Allen does us a particularly valuable service through his ability to describe and juxtapose the different spins being spun and then getting past them to the bigger picture, without at all... Read more
I have been more or less following the news from Rome about the meeting of the Synod of Bishops. There has been the flap about the letter from 13 cardinals to Pope Francis, first revealed by Sandro Magister, and of course there has been extended discussion about the question of admitting the divorced and remarried to communion. In this regard, there was an excellent reflection by Elizabeth Scalia (which, she later wrote, even startled her when she read it). But... Read more
On this the feast of our Seraphic Father, St. Francis, I want to wish each of our readers all the blessings, all the graces, all the joys that the Lord, in his infinite goodness, will dispense and indeed does dispense freely on those who turn to him. The following is from the Admonitions of St. Francis, and it seems to be a useful reminder for both bloggers and commentators (translation courtesy of Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word): The Apostle... Read more
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